[ #62 ] iTunes vs. SongBird (Resource Battle) Permalink

OSX Added a year and a bit ago

Here are four grabs from top, with both apps not playing anything, just sitting around:

  PID COMMAND      %CPU   TIME   #TH #PRTS #MREGS RPRVT  RSHRD  RSIZE  VSIZE
 2963 songbird     4.4%  0:15.06  19   202  1044  52.2M+ 55.6M+ 83.6M   722M 
 2951 iTunes       0.0%  0:02.59  12   223   354  21.8M  36.9M  40.8M   462M 

 2963 songbird     4.1%  0:30.20  18   201  1032  54.9M+ 53.4M  85.5M+  693M 
 2951 iTunes       0.0%  0:02.86  12   223   353  21.8M  36.6M  40.8M   461M

 2995 iTunes       0.0%  0:02.13  12   223   352  21.7M  37.7M  40.9M   461M 
 2993 songbird     1.5%  0:04.39  18   141   774  42.5M+ 49.7M  69.5M+  655M+

 2995 iTunes       0.0%  0:02.19  12   223   352  21.7M  37.6M  40.8M   461M
 2993 songbird     1.7%  0:05.80  15   136   764  42.5M  49.7M  69.5M   654M

What do those headings mean?

  1. CPU Percentage of processor time consumed (kernel and user)
  2. TH Number of threads
  3. RPRVT Resident private memory size
  4. RSHRD Resident shared memory size
  5. RSIZE Total resident memory size, including shared pages
  6. VSIZE Total address space allocated, including shared pages

So SongBird uses a bit more memory than iTunes and seems to be doing some processing even when there is nothing being played.

When I play the exact same song on both (at the same time) this is what happens (four grabs again):

  PID COMMAND      %CPU   TIME   #TH #PRTS #MREGS RPRVT  RSHRD  RSIZE  VSIZE
 2995 iTunes      14.7%  0:04.53  15   231   367  23.3M  37.3M  42.8M+  465M 
 2993 songbird    13.3%  0:13.33  19   185   893  46.0M  52.0M  75.4M+  668M+

 2995 iTunes       5.1%  0:06.97  15   231   367  23.3M  37.4M  42.8M   465M 
 2993 songbird    13.8%  0:18.66  18   184   890  44.5M  52.1M  73.7M-  666M-

 2995 iTunes       5.0%  0:08.27  15   231   367  23.3M  37.6M  42.8M   465M 
 2993 songbird    14.3%  0:21.41  18   184   900  45.1M+ 52.3M  74.3M+  667M+

 2995 iTunes       5.1%  0:09.44  15   231   367  23.3M  37.7M  42.8M   465M 
 2993 songbird    13.2%  0:23.84  18   184   910  45.7M+ 52.4M  74.9M+  667M+

So SongBird is the bigger hog, I think.

P.S.: The test song was Girl U Want - Devo

Colophon

Django Python 960.gs Git Vim NetBSD Nginx

The Author

This is the blog of Brad Willis, a software engineer living in Brisbane.

Meta

Help
Latest entries

*BSD Agile Apache Apple apt Athletics Best-Practice Censorship Comedy Cool Crosswords Deployment Django English Exim Firefox Git Hardcore Health irssi Javascript Jira Languages Linux Makefile Mathematics Mobile Broadband Mutt MySQL NetBSD nginx Nokia OpenVZ OSX Perl Privacy Python Rant Requirements rsync Ruby Shell Slackware SQL SQLite SSH Standards Subversion Television Testing ThisBlog Vim VMWare (Fusion) VPN X zsh

Recent Entries

Checking for exceptions in doctests
Homer's Curling Speech
retry in Python
Vim Makefile tabs
Centos (or RH) IPTables
Converting ssh2 public keys to openssh
Vim comment hints
Context managers in Perl
Dish rotation
Git - fixing commit user
apt stuff
Using shell variables in AWK
Linux - Too many open files
Tell gvim to save and quit... remotely
Vim - automatically remove whitespace at EOL
Python - relative paths from within modules
TV Aspect Ratios
Git - Which commits are in your branch only?
Subversion setup cheat sheet
Force detach a screen session
Modify sudo's use of environment variables
Install all Perl modules
Mutt - delete old messages
OpenVZ VPS and swap space
fail2ban on NetBSD for ssh
NetBSD - Using sup
Python - testing for a sys.exit
Python Best Practice Link Dump
Python script names
Perl - Using an expensive module
Speed of git clone
Perl Modules with Custom Prefix
Perl: tr vs. s
Brilliant sysadmin Reference
Why is GRUB better than LILO?
Why is swap space important?
Perldoc Output
Git's Index
Jira Project Keys
Git GUI

Links

ChoppingBoard, DaveMisc, Project365, RageQuit